Today I finished a magazine article called “The Fight of Your Life”. It was an inspirational piece on fighting to build an excellent life. The take-away points were: 1. An excellent life is based on God’s ways, not man’s. 2. Take the time to think about what an excellent life means to you and plan how you will achieve it. 3. Don’t let the barriers … Continue reading Timing is Everything
You know how sometimes you hear someone express an opinion which demonstrates clearly that they actually have no idea what they are talking about? Like that poor girl from the Miss Teen USA contest whose answer to the question, “why do you think so many Americans can’t find the USA on a map?” became the stuff of youtube legend. That’s generally how I feel about people who express any of the following “objections” to homeschooling:
They won’t know how to function in the real world.
They won’t get the experience of dealing with people with different religious beliefs.
They won’t have to learn to deal with people of different races.
They won’t know people who are poor.
They will be exposed to only one way of thinking.
Anyone who has homeschooled, has already had to deal with this sort of ignorance posing as “concern”. Unfortunately, 9 times out of 10, what one finds is that the person isn’t really concerned at all, and nothing you say, no amount of reason or reality will shake them from their preconceived ideas. It is precisely for these sort of people that a variety of pro-homeschooling t-shirts have started to be made. I’m broke, so I won’t be getting any myself anytime soon (I do take paypal if anyone would like to help out with this situation), but I found them amusing and thought I’d pass them on. Continue reading “Beware the unsocialized homeskoollers!”
Normally I trend a little towards the crunchy end of life. I make bread from scratch. I garden. I breast fed all four of my children, including my youngest who is still nursing. I wore them in slings around town. I homeschool. But there are just some places I won’t go. I don’t own a pair of sweats and only wear comfortable shoes when I’m … Continue reading Ricki Lake did something I won’t do . . .
Many moons back, we had our oldest son, and for one year, our younger son enrolled in Montessori schools. When I began homeschooling, the first books I bought were the Teaching Montessori at Home books by Elizabeth Hainstock and Lee Davis. (There is one for preschool and another for grade school. I think I lent my preschool one to someone, but I have no idea who. If I lent it to you, could you let me know? Thanks 🙂 )
Anyhow, as I went through the preschool edition, I was struck by some of the activities. In particular, the ones involving pouring activities hit me as very odd. Continue reading “Spilled Kool-aid and Montessori Education”
And now for something completely different. . . I’m going to share my family’s secret recipe for Yankee French Bread. Actually, I found this recipe in GQ, of all places years ago and have used it ever since. It’s super easy and gives you a wonderful, dense, slightly sour loaf that keeps well in a grocery store plastic bag. Mmmmmmm. . . 7 Cups Flour … Continue reading Yankee French Bread
One of the joys of having my two daughters is being able to watch Little Bear on Noggin with them. Somehow, I completely missed Little Bear with my sons, which is a shame. It is such a wonderful show – like the classical music of the cartoon world. It’s literature for the preschool set. This was one of the stories I watched with my girls … Continue reading I love Little Bear
This afternoon my 8 year old was annoying me so I suggested that he play his zoo tycoon game on another computer. This is one of those games where you have to set up a business and run it well to make more money to re-invest into the business and grow it, etc. Part of the game format is that if you screw it up, … Continue reading So does this mean they’re going to grow up to be terrorists?
I got to do something today which I had once planned on spending much of my life doing, but never really got the chance to do after getting waylaid by children and life and my own insecurities. I got to take a kid who thinks poetry is boring and meaningless and show them the magic which is present in those short, truncated lines with the … Continue reading There are elves in the fire
This is almost a year old, so perhaps some of you have already seen it, but if you haven’t read Steve Jobs’ 2005 graduation address at Stanford, you should. His brief description of dropping out of college to learn seems especially pertinent for those of us who are homeschooling our kids. My favorite part though, because it speaks to where my family is right now … Continue reading Words of wisdom from Steve Jobs
The Upside Down World 